Here are today’s lineups in the contest between the New York Mets and Houston Astros; game time is 2:05 p.m. EST. I’m working all day and through the evening, so please post your notes about the game in the comments; my hot air will go into a postgame wrapup at some point late in the evening.
New York Mets
Ruben Tejada SS
Daniel Murphy 2B
David Wright 3B
Scott Hairston LF
Lucas Duda RF
Andres Torres CF
Ike Davis 1B
Josh Thole C
Chris Schwinden RHP
Houston Astros
Jordan Schafer CF
Jose Altuve 2B
J.D. Martinez LF
Carlos Lee 1B
Jed Lowrie SS
Brian Bogusevic RF
Chris Johnson 3B
Jason Castro C
Wandy Rodriguez LHP
I know Hairston is supposed to kill lefties but seeing him in the cleanup spot screams “mediocrity” to me. Ike Davis finally has the bat going, so why is he #7? Because it’s assumed he can’t hit a lefty like Sandy Koufax Wandy Rodriguez? Lucas Duda is hitting ahead of Ike, and he looked pretty sick (literally) the last few days — hope he’s feeling better. That’s it for my ranting, now it’s your turn. Unleash in the comments.
Looks like a Spring Training line-up, with David Wright.
Ike is actually hitting left handers (.267) better than right handers this year (.152). Torres is 1-3 against lefties, so it’s hard to compare. This would be my lineup:
Tejada – Murphy – Wright – Duda – Hairston – Davis – Torres – Thole
Time to send down both Schwinden and Acosta. Wow, are they bad! Give some other guys a chance!
But at least Tejada is raking, with 10 doubles already!
Schwinden is miserable, send that guy back to Buffalo ASAP
You can tell its bad when SNY starts putting up the Chris Young graphics while schwinden is still pitching
You can tell its bad when SNY starts putting up the Chris Young graphics while he’s is still pitching
Joe, I would like to find something hopeful or positive to say about Schwinden since he seems like a humble guy who has already gone much farther in his career than one would have thought. Unfortunately, he gets behind every hitter and then is forced to throw 89 MPH straight stuff over the plate. His first two games were like the infuriating Pelfrey starts of last year, minus 3 MPH Is there something mechanical that can be fixed with him, or is he basically only a solid AAA starter.
I agree that Schwinden is very likable; I’d really, really like to see him do well. However, from what I’ve seen of him both last year and this year, he just doesn’t look like a big league pitcher. His stuff is too ordinary.